How does a state keep its capital city united? A strange question,
and one that is clearly not an issue in most of the world. But in
Israel, whose capital is the most coveted and contested city in the
world, the problem is an acute one.

Even this very week, as we celebrate Yom Yerushalayim, the 45th
anniversary of the liberation and unification of our Holy City, the
Arab world continues to encourage its masses to believe that
Jerusalem will soon be theirs. Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood
supporters cheered a preacher in Cairo a few days ago when he
promised them that a global Islamic caliphate will have its capital
in none other than the city of King David.

“The capital of the caliphate – the capital of the United States of
the Arabs – will be Jerusalem,” the preacher declared, “not Cairo,
Mecca or Medina.” The crowd then chanted, “Millions of martyrs march
toward Jerusalem.”

What, then, must be Israel’s strategy to keep Jerusalem united under
Jewish sovereignty? In this age of information, it must center not
only around security and diplomacy, but also education. To allow the
PLO to control the curriculum in Arab schools in eastern Jerusalem –
as the Palestinian Authority demands – means allowing the Arab
narrative to be officially inculcated into the younger Arab
generation, year after year, with no interference. This, in turn,
means that we are conceding our sovereignty in all of Jerusalem, and
even worse, tacitly encouraging new generations of terrorists,
suicide bombers, and other anti-Israel “freedom fighters.”

For what is the “Arab narrative” that comprises the basis of PLO
education? It is that the Jews are colonial usurpers of the homeland
that has been holy for Palestinians since time immemorial; that
Israel has no legal or moral right to exist and is living on borrowed
time; that it flourishes not on its own merits but by virtue of
American handouts; and that it brutalizes Arabs wherever possible via
Israel’s “Occupation Forces” and “apartheid” government.

Having been fed such poison, what self-respecting generation anywhere
could grow up with anything other than total hatred and resentment
for Israel, and often the desire to kill and maim? For Israel to
allow these lies – each of the above is nothing less – to be taught
unfettered is a form of national suicide.

Yet just a week ago, PA prime minister Salam Fayyad announced he will
fight for the right to indoctrinate his young precisely in that
way. “We assure you,” he told a rally in Ramallah, “that the PA is
determined to continue to stand with you to protect the Palestinian
curriculum in East Jerusalem, with all its contents, and confront all
attempts to distort and tamper with the national and Arabic
curriculum in the city.”

The PA’s Maan news agency reported that in 2011, the Jerusalem
municipality sent a letter to the heads of private schools, which
receive Israeli funding, instructing them to use only textbooks
prepared by the Jerusalem Educational Administration, a joint body of
the municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education. The PA
Education Ministry had actually placed its logo all new textbooks;
Israel removed it.

We recommend that you write to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat
(http://www.facebook.com/nir.barkat) and to Israel’s education
minister (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gideon-Saar/34775063966),
asking them to ensure that Israel does not give up its rights to
teach the truth in its capital.

Benzion Netanyahu, Legality of Settlements, and KeepJerusalem

As these words are being written, Prime Minister Netanyahu is
completing his shiva mourning period for his father, Professor
Benzion Netanyahu, who passed away at the age of 102. In late 2010,
KeepJerusalem conducted what was likely the last video interview with
the venerable historian and ardent Zionist, on the occasion of his
joining KJ’s advisory board.

Prof. Netanyahu told KeepJerusalem that the way to ensure Jewish
control over all of Jerusalem is “to enlist the Jewish people to
fight for the integrity and completeness of Jewish Jerusalem.” Asked
if he meant militarily, he said, “Yes, if that’s what’s needed.”

The historian, who was Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s last personal secretary,
said KeepJerusalem should continue its work in educating the Jews
about Jerusalem: “But don’t come to people like me who’ve been there
100 times; go to people who haven’t been there even once!”
Prime Minister Netanyahu, at his father’s 100 birthday celebration at
the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, said that Prof.
Netanyahu was the person who most influenced him in his lifetime. It
is partially thanks to Prof. Netanyahu, notes Zionist historian Eli
E. Hertz, that Israel’s towns and cities in Judea and Samaria are
totally legal under international law:

Article 80 of the United Nations Charter upholds all decisions made
by UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations – including the Mandate
for Palestine, granting Jews the absolute right to settle anywhere
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Professor Eugene
Rostow, a past dean of Yale Law School and a key draftee of the UN
Resolution 242, wrote that Prof. Netanyahu was among those who
attended the San Francisco Conference in 1945, with the mission of
protecting the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine. “Article 80
was the result of their efforts,” Rostow concluded.

For more information on how to participate in keeping Jerusalem
Jewish, via updates, bus tours of critical parts of Jerusalem, and
more, send an e-mail to tours@keepjerusalem.org or visit Keep
Jerusalem-Im Eshkachech’s website at www.keepjerusalem.org.